
Class. 
Book.. 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




^Uncommon Sense 

versus 

Common Sense. 

By RAYON. 

COPYRIGHTED BY M. RAYON, IN THE YEAR 1900. 
All Rights Reserved. 



ADDRESS 



P. 0. BOX, 927 



CHICAGO, ILL., U. 5. A, 



>46?5 



0L.VO 






CONTENTS. 

The Advantage of Being ^N^ 

Acquainted with Yourself 



Uncommon Sense versus ( £ommcm Sg.nsc 

Plain Facts 

Some Naked Truths 

Healing. — Argument 

Healing. — Work 

Modern Surgery 

The Dual Entity 



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OCT 1 !900 

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SECOND COPY. 

Or*>v*r«t *» 

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O CT 22 1S0Q 
Continuance of the HigherH*>e"lf 

Explanation of Portraits 

Valuable Testimony 

Quotations 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Elfa. Among the People 

Elfa. Passing into Magnetic Sleep. Preparing 
for the Separation of the Two Selves 

Elfa. The Physical Self Dormant. 
The Higher Self away at work 



Page 

I 

3 

5- 

9 

14 

23 

3 1 

33 

4i 

A46 

47 
48 

A 
B 
C 




Zo all in Search of ^rutb- 
(Sreettn^ 




Comprehension of the Self embraces 

mastery of all the secrets 

worth knowing. 




Do you know what your "Self" may 

contain, besides what physical 

science can tell you? 



UNCOMMON SENSE 

versus COMMON SENSE. 

The dictionary says that the word "common," 

I used as an adjective, means commonplace, ordinary, ^ 
mean, vulgar. 

If the word common can be construed to desig- 
nate anything other than inferior — of poor quality — 
even when applied to sense, I fail to see by what 
grammatical process it can be done; how the sig- 
nificance of the word can be twisted into an honor- 
able distinction. 

If a man himself, his child, his horse or his dog 
were called common he would certainly not feel 
flattered; but if credited with the possession of com- 
mon sense he is expected to consider it a great 
compliment. 

The dictionary defines "uncommon" to mean not 
common, not usual, remarkable, strange, rare, 
scarce, unwonted, unusual. 

If thus, we are not already misled at the very 
outset of learning, by the book that is accepted as 
authority for the meaning of words, Uncommon 3 2 
Sense must assuredly be better than the common 
kind. 

Aside from a mere distinction of quality, there is 
an Uncommon Sense that has been occulted by 
materialism, by the brute selfishness of individuals, 
by the greed of power and wealth of institutions 
that, ostensibly established for the purpose oP' 
enhancing the welfare of the people, oppose and do 
their utmost to suppress all knowledge that threat- 
ens their sway over the public mind, or that presages 
a diminution of their income. 

3 



Very little reflection will suffice to show that the 
44 money so absorbed is too enormous for any esti- 
. mate, and that this vast share taken from the earn- 
to ings of the producer is, after all is said and done, 
nothing more nor less than a crippling tax upon the 
ignorance of those who furnish the means wherewith 
■* they are successfully kept in bondage. 

Herbert Spencer said (and he speaks for Huxley 
and all the rest of the modern physicists) : — "All phy- 
sical inquiries pursued to the end bring us down to 
metaphysics and face to face with an insoluble 
problem. " 
j That is to say — your knowledge is confined to 
material things, and there is no use looking further. 
Is that common sense? It certainly must be; no 
other quality would adjust itself to an arrogant 
4 philosophy that demands authoritive recognition, 
and then confesses itself staggered by the first ques- 
tion relating to what is best worth knowing; to what, 
^in fact, alone is worth knowing, because this know- 
ing entails a cognition that is free from error and 
confusion. 

It is just such dead-lines as these that have held the 

g 4 non-thinking rabble in check for ages, and they 

have fully paid the penalty for their submission to 

such factionistswith their health and their earnings, 

jg dealing out incessant contributions to individuals and 

institutions who promise to solve the problem of 

their everlasting misery and ills, and who fail to fail 

g 2 in one thing only— and that is, in the extortion of 

hard earnings under what is nothing short of false 

pretense. 



PLAIN FACTS. 

There is no lack of proof that some persons pos- 
sess faculties and powers that upset all theories of 
so-called ''regular" science; that such persons are 
capable of achievements that are inexplicable to ^J 
those who possess only common sense. 

The higher force of the mind, cultivated to a *£ 
tangible potency, well developed magnetism and ■> 
steadfast faith, are a triune of power that can not I 
be overestimated. 

History, both secular and religious, confirmed 
reports of groups of investigators celebrated for 
their wisdom, voluminous authenticated records of 
individual experiences, prove beyond the shadow of -> 
any doubt, that an imponderable force, capable of 
limitless application, has been known and utilized 
in all ages; that wherever this potency is brought 
under control through a corresponding affinitive 
agency within the Self, it assumes the character of a, 
curative principle that no disease can withstand, 
and that can be exercised in various other ways 
often fully as important as the dislodging of physi- 
cal ailments, — but ever incomprehensible to the 
ordinary understanding. 

It is not difficult to make sure of the actuality of 
this power if the mind of the inquirer is really open ^ 
to conviction; but the coveted, absolute certainty is 
for those only who are able to arouse within them- 00 
selves the faculties necessary to such works — at least ^ J 
sufficiently to cognize truth despite apparent n2 
variance with prior fixed beliefs. / 

Serious effort in this direction leads to the devel- 
opment of that "uncommon sense" through which, 

5 



alone, all the higher human attributes can find unre- 
strained expression; through which, alone, the tre- 
mendous force of concentrated thought can be 
realized; through which, alone, the miraculous heal- 
ing power can be conceived; through which, alone, 
5 all other personal powers, erroneously termed super- 
normal and mystical, become intelligible. 

20 Modern science has long pretended to maintain 
an arrogant and contemptuous attitude toward the 

|- exponents of these disputed higher human forces; 
because, if the superior faculties and powers, innate 

2I -in many individuals, were admitted to be what they 
really are — indiscriminate endowments from Nature, 
like the talents — and the arousing and cultivation of 

~ 7 these higher attributes had been thus encouraged, — 
the masses would assuredly be stimulated to a self- 

4 g examination that must result in the acquisition of 
"uncommon sense," and that would speedily and 

t plainly show them the absurdity and danger of, for 
instance, the prevalent reckless use of drug poisons 
and other fallacious endeavors to coerce Nature with 
artificial expedients 

The common-sense motive for resistance to the 
encroachment of such knowledge must be obvious 
to the dullest. The vaunted "regular" systems in 
vogue would crumble under the light of truth 
brought to bear upon them by a general recognition 
of the suppressed powers of the Self. 

That science did realize and anticipate an inevita- 
ble crisis is proven by the great ado made over Hyp- 
notism. A clamor was raised that could no longer 
be hushed by mere denial or a pretended air of 
amusement; the demand for an explanation of the 
personal powers, manifested with ever increasing 

6 



frequency, was too vehement and widespread to be 
further ignored; hence, in its desperate straits, 
science seized upon Mesmerism, dissected and 
remodelled it to suit the limited capacity of its 
"common sense" members, and calling it Hypno- 
tism, announced a wonderful new 7 discovery. The 
usual proceeding. 

The new science (?) was grasped at with all the 
avidity displayed by an exhausted swimmer at sight 
of a life preserver; every medic who sat out his 
office hours in despondent contemplation of his 
framed diploma, at once started to climb this slim 
ladder to fame and fortune. 

It is not intended to belittle Hypnotism as an art 
per se — as Kant would have it — u das Ding an sich" 
— because a great amount of good has, indisputably, 
resulted from the very extensive exploitation of this 
scientific hybred ; but when science asserts that it has 
solved the problems of Magnetism, Mesmerism, 
etc., through Hypnotism, it only adds another error, 
or misrepresentation, to its interminable list of 
deceptions and self delusions. 

Hypnotism is all right in the place where it 
belongs; but in its best aspect it is a mere makeshift 
to retard, as long as possible, the more and more- 
imperative demand of the people for a lucid and 
conclusive explanation of those individual powers 
that, however far they may be beyond the horizon 
of the common-sense physicist, are now too well 
attested, and too familiarly known to all independ- 
ent investigators to be again subject to scientific * 
occultation. 

Many are, of course, still duped by this latest sub- 
terfuge, but those w r ho are awakened from the 

7 



scientific stupefication into which they had been 
"suggested" by the "common-sense" exposition 
offered in Hypnotism, are rapidly realizing the fact 
that Hypnotism, after all is said that can be said in 
its favor, is but a futile attempt to produce the won- 
derful results achieved through Magnetism — without 
Magnetism. 

One excellent effect must be credited to the Hyp- 
notic craze, and that is, that an enormous number of 
y intelligent people were thereby led to serious inves- 
tigation, and to the discovery that the barriers 
erected by the physicists are only further proof of 
their incapacity to solve the all important problem 
of bettering the condition of the - masses who are 
forced to submit to their dictates, even to the extent 
of being inoculated with animal corruption and 
denied the choice of physicians who could cure them 
when all the resources of the presumptuous "regu- 
lar" have proved of no avail. 





B 



SOME NAKED TRUTHS. 

The present is called an age of startling discover- 
ies, but the majority of observers note progress in 
material achievements only. The leaders in this 
category of advancement are those who invent, con- 
struct and direct the operations of the most effect- 
ive instruments of warfare , machinery that slaughters 
at wholesale, at long range. The admiration of the 
non-thinking rabble for this order of progressionists 
is unbounded, and their material rewards are too 
rich to bear comparison with any tribute to works 
for the welfare of humanity. 

The principal direction in which the lauded arts 
and sciences are at a standstill is in that of the well- 
being of man — individualized. 

There is no difficulty in obtaining a consensus of 
expert judgment on the all-important subject of 
what is the best kind of a hole to make in a man to 
place him hors du combat, but there, is an ever in- 
creasing diversity of scientific conclusions in regard 
to what is good for the human biped. 

If the most homeopathic rate of comparative 
progress had been made in the art of curing ail- 
ments by the so-called "regular" schools of medi- 
cine that are so lavishly encouraged, so bounteously 
supported and so assiduously protected, as that 
achieved in the crippling and killing of men — the 
pick of nations, the men selected for their physical 
perfection, the best specimens to improve the races 
— we would be a good deal nearer the long and anx- 
iously awaited millennium. 

Anent the shackling of the King of Sin, which is 
the main feature of the promised universal release 

9 



from trouble, as stated in Revelation XX — that 
u Satan will be bound one thousand years" — there is 
one striking similarity between that prophecy and 
the predictions of modern sages who have an- 
nounced the destruction of the earth — and that is, 
that it is a long time coming. The difference in 
excellence of these prognostications must be 
accorded to the ancients, but only because they 
were not foolish enough to set a fixed date for the 
occurrence. 

With the devil still rampant and at large, and the 
earth yet unshattered, we can not avoid the contem- 
plation of cruel realities that persist in obtruding 
themselves, and will do so, — unless an improbable 
miracle eliminates selfishness from the composition 
of humanity — as long as we continue to be whirled 
around in our customary orbit, and without a more 
definite assurance that the chains for the Regent of 
Hades are being forged, and that they will suffice to 
hold him — when he is caught. 

Despite all the wanton sacrifice of life under the 
banner of the cross, and the ceaseless absorption of 
incalculable wealth, religious beliefs are further 
from unity than ever before. At no previous time 
,have dissensions been so bitter and so general. 
Doubt of the efficacy of ecclesiastical mediation is 
steadily increasing, — and well it might! The ever 



6 7 



multiplying exposures of sinfulness and criminal 



acts of the most heinous character, committed by 
clergymen, the aggressive effrontery with which they 
^strive to secure personal advantages, have opened 
9 the eyes of the people to the fact that, at least a 
goodly part of the so-called servants and ministers 
of God are composed of the same inferior, tempta- 

10 



ble and selfish material that constitutes the person- 
ality of the vilest sinner to be found beyond the pale 
of the church. 

While certainly fully aware of all this, as they 
must be, if there is any, however common, sense 
among them, — churchmen still profess to wonder 4 
why their congregations are dwindling away! 

Only those who are unwilling to be disillusioned 
fail to remark the difference between the laboriously ° 
prepared, cold intellectual efforts heard in the 
costly, up-to-date churches of a mongrel' aristocracy 
that flaunts its ostentatious pomp in the faces of the 
sorely stricken poor under the very shadow of the 
cross of Christ, — and the fervent outbursts of true 
inspiration that do penetrate even the flinty crust of 
materialism; burning words from a surcharged soul 
that partakes of all the misery of its kind; men who 
are conscious of the true spirit within, who not only 
preach Christ, but who do his chosen work among 
the sick and desperate and sinful. 

Despite the fact that millions of defenseless 
creatures, horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs — 
all inoffensive, trustful and capable of great affec- 
tion — have been slowly tortured to death; the help- 
less poor, in and outside the hospitals, abandoned 
children in the asylums, the demented in the living 
hells in which they are incarcerated, and from which 
their remonstrances and cries of agony can not reach 1 5 
the public ear, — have been subjected to scientific ex- 
perimentations that rival the most blood-curdling 
atrocities of that ineffacable nightmare of reality — 
the Inquisition, — despite all these legally sanctioned 
horrors there are more and worse physical and men- 
tal disorders to-day than the world ever knew in its 

11 



profoundest ignorance. More abominable still, 
44 there is a long list of diseases that have their origin 
l- in this art (?) of medication itself! The adminis- 
tration of mercurial compounds alone, according to 
the ablest exponents of the science (?), being 
•* responsible for more permanent disablements and 
unnatural deaths than all the wars and epidemics 
combined. And this is but one of a hundred and 
more virulent poisons in common daily use among 
the so-called regular physicians, — death-dealing sub- 
stances that any fledgling doctor, authorized by his 
diploma, may give to, or order for patients. If 
the drug kills, the error is buried with the cadaver; 
the diploma shields the scientific murderer from all 
unpleasant consequences. The certificate of death 
he is authorized to issue as attendant physician 
obliterates all traces of the fatal consequences of 
ignorance, error and reckless experimentation. 
The energies and capabilities of the "common- 
2 g sense" order of medical men seem to have been ex- 
hausted in the endeavor to secure laws that give 
them the exclusive right to practice; (practice is a 
well chosen word, as it is about all the majority do), 
and as they have been successful in many States, 
through ignorant and corrupt politicians, in securing 
protective legislative enactments that exclude all 
those who could cure the many hopeless sufferers 
upon whom this arrogant, jealous and greedy 
science (?) has pronounced the paralyzing verdict 
"incurable," there is every reason, from the "common 
sense" point of view, why they should conclude that 
there is no further occasion for them to make any 
effort to improve themselves professionally, 



12 



Having secured the monopoly of the doctoring 
business, and besides, exemption from legal punish- 
ment for whatever fatal mistakes they make in 
dosing and cutting, why should they, always from 
the common sense standpoint, of course, bother 
about more effective methods for curing people? 

The true aspect of all these common-sense busi- 
ness philanthropies is fairly outlined in the follow- 

in £ : . 

Is it reasonable to expect that an enterprising 

undertaker, or as they now progressively style 
themselves, "funeral director/' who has a hundred 
or more horses eating their heads off, thousands of 
dollars invested in fancy hearses and carriages, and 
an extensive stock of caskets for the rich, and coffins 
for the poor, and piles of mortuary frills besides, 
should wear out the knees of his trousers praying 
for a diminution of the death rate? 

From every phase of existence, from that of the 
child still in the womb until the grass grows over 
the mortal remains, it will be found, with the exercise 
of any kind of sense, that some one possessing 
"common sense" is calculating upon a profit from 
every personal inclination, requirement, intended 
act, or chance happening; and a little more reflec- 
tion — and one must be dull indeed not to discover 
that — will show that the heaviest tax imposed on 
this earth is levied upon that particular branch of 
ignorance which involves the incalculable cost and 
misery due to a lack of understanding of the Self. 



13 



HEALING.— ARGUMENT. 

^ The highest aim anyone can fix upon is to aid the 
-'physical, mental and spiritual betterment of less 
favored fellow-men. 

Histories, that are of any value from the point of 

10 impartiality, as well as veracity in other respects, 
and well attested individual evidences without limit, 

.prove conclusively that there is a healing, or 
restorative principle in Nature, that needs only to be 
known and intelligently exploited to effect bene- 
^ficial changes in the human organism that defy 
enumeration and description; effects that are en- 
tirely beyond the power of art to achieve. 

The innumerable well confirmed good results from 
treatment of diseases, by a variety of methods and 
processes other than medication, had in recent years 
— if any doubt were entertainable of the older testi- 
monies — makes it impossible longer to deny these 
natural curative agencies. 
S Mental, magnetic and faith cures have been per- 
formed in all times; water-cure and massage are 
natural modes of helping to restore health that an- 

igtedate organized science by a good many centuries. 
The movement cures are nothing more than ela- 
boration and classification of the most primitive 

2I methods for stimulating vitality by increasing the 
circulation of the blood, causing deeper breathing 
and profuse perspiration. Hot air treatments have 

g been in vogue with the aborigines as far back as 
tribal customs can be traced. 

All these modes of eradicating sickness are fully 
proven as efficacious; they have undergone no 
changes, in so far as the fundamental principles 

14 



are concerned, and none have been discarded. In 
all these features the natural healing methods differ 
radically — most radically — from the medical sy- 
stems. 

Those who deny these things must make choice 
of assignment to one or the other of the following 
groups: the first, — the man-wolf who will deny any- 54 
thing that presents a possibility of depriving him of ,- 
a material advantage however much it might benefit * 
fellow-men ; the second, — the incorrigible ignoramus ^ 
who resists truth because there is no other means 
whereby he can make himself conspicuous; this is a 
sceptic. The third class are the much to be pitied 
hordes who have never been privileged to have 
thoughts of their own, hence can not be blamed for 73 
their ignorance. 

The preponderance of human ailments are in- 
disputably due to estrangement from -Nature. The 
best proof of that is had in the rapid convalescence 
of individuals who, as a last resort, leave the crowded 
cities and live out of doors. It is true that even in 
this return to Nature for help, there may be a risk. 
Some die at the seashore where many others revive; 
some die on the mountains and in the forests, where 
restoration to full health and vigor is common. 

The usual professional verdict of those who or- 
dered the change of — whatever it was — is, that those 
who died were too far gone to be benefitted. 

More often than not that is an error. It is less 
seldom an error when the removal advised is the 
well understood doctors' ruse to get rid of a patient 
whose deplorable condition is hurting his profes-57 
sional reputation. Very frequently the final collapse 
is brought about only by the victim of science being 

15 



sent to a place just opposite in effect to the one to 
which he should have gone. 

Mitigating reasons may be found for failures 
that are free from suspicion of selfishness; but if 
the adviser, with or without diploma, is afflicted with 
fixed ideas as to the infallibility of some one partic- 
ular method, and he rejects clear proof of the 
virtue of other processes; then, without distinction, 
all such who venture tb meddle with the disordered 
organisms of other persons are bound to do more 
killing than curing, and become as culpable as those 
who induce fatal results by the reckless exhibition of 
powerful drugs or the criminal practice of intention- 
ally prolonging human suffering for gain. 

The fanatics who ceaselessly rail against medica- 
tion are of exactly the same calibre as the stupid or 
mercenary medics who stuff their patients with 
drugs, like the damnable wretches in Strassburg 
stuff geese. 

There are physicians who will receive golden 
crowns, and play on jeweled harps, and rest on the 
driest and fleeciest of clouds, if unselfish devotion 
to suffering humanity is rewarded, as it is said ; and a 
few natural healers will sit with them, and discuss 
the mistakes both made in commendable efforts to 
relieve mortals from pain. 

Whoever attempts to pass critical judgment on 
the merits and demerits of natural healing methods 
should keep the following points distinctly in view: 
So-called medical science has no excuses to offer for 
its endless errors, on the ground of lack of encour- 
agement and material support. Everything has 
been granted it, even the unpardonable outrage of 
vivisection, experimentation on the defenseless 

16 



poor and the ruthless desecration of the dead. 

What have the exponents of natural healing meth- 
ods had? 

Never a favor from a government; never an im- 
portant sum of money, from any source, wherewith 
to establish an institution where the facts known to 
them could be demonstrated; where the truths 
assured could be freed from error, as must be from 
all knowledge that has not been systematically set 
in order. All they have had is persecution— a 
relentless persecution — and who is responsible for 
this? Those to whom the care of the public health 
is intrusted; who should welcome with open arms 
any and every fragment of knowledge that may in- 
crease their competence to fulfill this sacred trust. 

The plain truth is that the common-sense contin- 
gent that predominates so largely among regular 
practitioners, takes a very common-sense view of 
the situation, i. e., they see that the general recog- 
nition of the truths relating to natural healing would 
mean the sweeping away of so large a part of the 
drugging systems that not a vestige of reason would 
remain upon which to rest a semblance of right to 
the business monopoly now enjoyed by this gigantic 
imposture. The least intelligence must see the 
one and only possible motive for the ever alert and 
violent opposition to such encroachments. There 
can be but one such motive — and that is, a selfish- 
ness without parallel, because it entails a total disre- 
gard for the welfare of humanity. 

When the fact is fairly considered that medical 
science has had an uninterrupted and unlimited 
moral support, as well as the most unstinted mate- 
rial help, and that, moreover, even the constitutional 

17 



rights of citizens have been curtailed for its benefit, 
— that all claims (not evidence) of alleged import- 
ant discoveries have been, and are, given the widest 
possible gratuitous publicity and fulsome praise, 
before it is proven that these are deserved — what 
then should be said of the healers, and their unde- 
niably superior showing, under exactly opposite 
conditions? 

My insistence on the necessity of clearing the 
mind of all bias in order to reach the truth would 
lose weight if the line were drawn abruptly at this 
point. Another view is necessary to maintain my 
asseveration of impartiality. 

If we could be forced to believe the assertions of 
advertising wonder-workers, who stop but little short 
of professing to perform miracles as easily as a baker 
makes loaves of bread, we must conclude that the 
world is full of Mahatmas, Adepts, Magicians, 
Necromancers, Sorcerers and witches; that there 
are even more of those special agents and living- 
instruments of the occult world now at large than 
were presumed to exist in the most prolific period 
of earlier so-called dark ages. 

We are asked to believe that these persons can 
accomplish all sorts of wonderful things through 
acquaintance with some one of a score of unorthodox 
'isms that contain a fragment of a basic, but at the 
same time elusive truth that, however undeniably 
this truth has ever been in evidence, is unattainable 
except to him who, first of all, understands himself. 

It may be of service to some readers here to state 
that any person who advertises himself as a Mystic, 
Mahatma, Adept, or as a member of a brotherhood, 
such as the Society of the Rose and Cross (Rosi- 

18 



crucian), etc., may be set down as a barefaced fraud. 
Those best entitled to such distinctions are the very 
last who would make use of them for selfish ends. 
When these various 'isms are critically exam- 
j ined by investigators who are competent, hone-st and 
(really free from mental bias, it is invariably proven 
that, however astounding some attested results may 
be, isolated achievements are claimed as proof of 
ability to produce the whole kaleidoscope of phe- 
nomena and miracles; also that the named method 
by which the feat, of whatever nature it may have 
been, was accomplished, is some resurrected single 
idea, refurbished and elaborated into an inflexible 
system or doctrine, calculated to impress the unin- 
formed with an unparalleled magnitude of power. 

It is not difficult to find all the evidence that can 
be desired, of the fact that every craze or fad that is 
at all well started, will very quickly have a large fol- 
lowing; that it is very much easier to win renown as 4^ 
a miracle-worker than as a good tailor or shoemaker 
A sound reason for this otherwise inexplicable 
credulity is found in the unhappy condition of 
humanity as a whole, and the consequently natural 
eagerness with which means are sought to banish, or 
at least ameliorate physical suffering, mental misery 
and spiritual non-ease. 

However vehemently this readiness to believe in 
alleged chimeras may be condemned, and ostenta- 
tiously derided by a certain class of alleged scient- 
ists whose chief claim to distinction rests upon being 
"regular,'' and however vociferously it may be 
inveighed against by orthodox theologians, it is 
overwhelming proof of the failure of the endless 
promises of the former to eradicate diseases of the 

19 



flesh, and of the equally palpable inability of the 
latter to set the human mind at rest on spiritual 
requirements. But above all there is a testimony in 
these widespread beliefs that, even without the 
superabundant mass of proof of extraordinary 
forces of the human mind, of psychic powers with- 
out definable limit, and spiritual endowments 
beyond the grasp of any intellect, certainly much 

7^ more than outweighs the arrogant denials of the 
greedy, jealous and ignorant horde of pretenders 
who, by nothing more than the flaunting of an 
empty title, expect to compel the submissive acqui- 
esence of the multitude; and that testimony is, the 
ever present consciousness of, and unquenchable 
faith in an uncommon sense, in a superlative human 
power, that can be traced throughout all ages and 
among all races as far back as research can be ex- 
tended. 

The foregoing will suffice to show how the views 
of both sides are distorted. Nothing need be said to 
guide the judgment of the reader to a sensible con- 
clusion; the true facts have been stated, I think, as 
clearly as concisely. 

One matter that is pregnant with importance is 

jgthat the best men of the regular schools are giving 
more and more attention to what they term the vis 
medicatrix naturce, which, freely translated, means 
curative force in Nature. Many of the most justly 
celebrated physicians admit that they place more 
dependence on the arousing and stimulating of this 
innate potency by simple, natural means, than upon 
any of the devices of their art. 

This being true, which it indisputably is — what 
can we infer from that but the full recognition, on 

20 



the part of the foremost men in medical science, of 
the fundamental idea of all forms of natural healing? 

There are many ways of starting a fire, each 
effective in its way; but however expert we may be 
in igniting any substance, the phenomenon, per se, 
remains unknown. 

The two points are analogous; the vital principle, 
like the latent fire, may be compelled by various 
processes, but sometimes the last one tried will pro- 
duce the desired effect while those from which im- 
mediate results were confidently expected failed 
utterly. 

Much, of course, must remain unsaid in this little 
volume for want of space, but I hope that despite 
its brevity it wall help many to realize that true 
progress is only possible where the mind is open to 
all truth, even though such truth, at the first glance, 
may seem totally at variance with all prior con- 
ceptions. 

It must be borne in mind that all knowledge re- 
ceived from external sources is subject to modifi- 
cation by subsequent impressions of similar charac- 
ter; that what may seem proper to call a definite 
conclusion at one time may, after all, prove of no 
more worth than the most ephemeral opinion. 

Only that primitive and now, in civilized man, al- 
most occulted faculty — called instinct in animals 
and intuition in human beings — when in a normal 
state of activity, insures absolute certainty, definite 
knowing (clearly distinguished from mere believing). 
This is direct cognition — knowing without reasoning. 

This faculty is capable of a cultivation and de- 
velopment to so high a degree that ail ordinary 
means of attaining knowledge shrink into i n ^ignific- 

21 



ance beside it. 

As soon as we return to Nature, truly penitent for 
our desertion, the evidence of this truth presents 
j itself on every hand. To go no further we have it 
in the works of the bee, the birds and the beaver; 
we find it everywhere where the vain and egotistical 
biped called man has not yet taken it upon himself 
to substitute his arts for thq natural gifts of the Al- 
mighty Architect of the Universe. 

From whatever point we start in search of an un- 
mistakable truth — not an apparent verification se- 
lected because it is in accordance with some re- 
j* spected authoritive view — a basic truth — we will find, 
^however round about the path pursued, that we are 
compelled to return to^the Self for final and satis- 
fying proof. 

If I have been clear — then it will be seen that ab- 
solute proof of truth is to be found within the 
Self only, and those who are able to grasp this very 
simple fact are not long in discovering a higher Self 
that explains all else that is best worth knowing. 

If we make the acquaintance of this dual Self we 
learn how to live; we recognize our actual require- 
ments, like animals in their original state; we live to 
a natural end without fear of death because this ac- 
quaintance dispels all lingering doubts about the 
future beyond the grave with which that Self has 
no concern whatever. 



HEALING.— WORK. 

I think it has been very plainly proven that there 10 
is a basic healing factor in Nature, and that all that 
is needed is to know how to arouse and use it. 3 

If proof is desired it is easily obtainable — of 
splendid results from each and every one of the 
drugless methods of curing. 

The sceptics — professional and amateur — attribute 
all such cures to the imagination. Well and good. If 
the imagination is capable of being worked upon to 
the extent of making a sound, healthy and useful 
being out of a bed-ridden cripple who has spent all 
he had with Science only to be assured that he will 
be a helpless wreck all the rest of his mortal days, — 
then. I think Science should be severely taken to 
task for not investigating so tremendous an aid in 
the restoration of health. 

The human mind is no greater mystery to the un- 
learned than it is to the most erudite. Tons of books 
have been written by men with a quarter alphabet 
appended to their names as evidence of technical wis- 4 2 
dom, purporting to explain mental action and power 
without venturing beyond the bizzare barriers erected 
by the physicists. The great bulk of these books are 3 
of exactly the same degree of practical value to hu- 
manity as the observations of the astronomers who 
sit in costly observatories to tell of distances to and 
between celestial bodies said to be millions, and 
even billions of miles remote from the earth. 

This latter order of Scientists emphatically deny 
a specific influence of the planets and stars upon 
human kind on this globe, because they, themselves, 
are too dull and material to sense anything, and 

23 



in view of that fact it is certainly impossible to sec 
any utility in such work other than the gratification 
of a professional vanity and the more substantial 
one of being comfortably housed at somebody else's 
expense and drawing a salary. 

If the powerful instruments that are said to be 
capable of determining the composition of a star 
hundreds of millions of miles away could be turned 
upon the interior of man, and give the physicists a 
better idea of organic function, they would be of 
some use; as it is they are of no human service 
whatever. All that is of real use to know, in this 
regard, from any practical point of view, was dis- 
covered ages ago by men who did not possess even 
a common spy glass. 

After asserting with the utmost vehemence, for 
untold years, that no sight could penetrate opaque 
substances, science received a great shock by the 
discovery of Professor Roentgen's invention (the X 
5 y ray). As this, to the physicist and materialist, how- 
ever astounding discovery, is nothing more than 
proof that under certain favorable conditions the 
visual organs are capable of penetrating solid bodies, 
is it not very presumptuous to insist that there is no 
sight that can accomplish this without artificial 
aid? 

We have ample and unqualified testimony of men 
justly renowned for their immense learning, and also 
for ttueir keenness of observation, to the effect that 
there is a^ision that is entirely independent of the 
common organ of sight, a perceptive sense that 
knows no obstacle whatever, either as to distance or 
density! See page 2j Ref. note du PreL 

24 



I am loath here to speak of my own work, antici- 
pating a possible wrong impression that I am court- 
ing notoriety. That such an opinion would be an 
error, is, I think, very conclusively proven by my 
not taking advantage of the extensive publicity 
given me at the time of my discovery of Elfa's ex- 
traordinary powers. 

The sole motive that impels me to risk such a mis- 
conception is that in speaking of my work with Elfa 
I am in no wise dependent on any foreign source of 
information, and am able to state what I know to be 
absolute facts from personal experience verified by 
observations now extending over seven years. I 
look upon the discovery of my famed Psyche as a 
full reward for a lifetime of earnest study and 
devotion to a good cause; and those who have 
searched the world over as I have for what I found 
at last, will best, and perhaps only, understand my 
profound gratitude, and also my reluctance to risk 
being misjudged in the evening of my life. 

I trust that this explanation will suffice as a good 
reason for alluding to my own work. 

Elfa is beyond doubt the most generously en- 
dowed Psyche of whom there is any available ac- 
count. Her powers are of so wide a scope that 
they embrace all the various phases of psychological 
achievements. 

Being thoroughly informed of all that has been 
accomplished by de Puysegur, Wienholt, Rcichen- 
bach, du Prel and others, with scores of .sensitives at 
their command, I realize, as few others could, the 
boldness of the foregoing assertion, but I am there- 
fore no less conscious of my perfect right to make 
this statement, and that without qualifying it in any 
way whatever. 25 



When I say that some persons are endowed with 
faculties that enable them to see and hear what is in- 
visible and inaudible to others, I am stating so old 
and well known a fact that it seems absurd to repeat 
it here; but when I say that Elfa has made examina- 
tions of persons that described the entire interior 
human structure in its most minute detail, and more- 
over, that she gave information that was at once rec- 
ognized as indisputable, regarding the functions of 
certain organs which Science can not explain, I ex- 
pect a good deal of wise head shaking and denial. 
And yet I have in this told but a mere fragment of 
a great truth. As there is, however, no need of 
more to be said here than what actually relates to the 
subject in hand, I will only say that Elfa, in magnetic 
sleep, is able to see every fibre in the human organ- 
ization, describe its normal or abnormal state, and 
what caused the change, if any; and also what is re- 
quired to restore the affected parts to a natural con- 
dition. 

I have made such examinations through Elfa tor 
regular physicians who prided themselves upon 
their profound knowledge of anatomy, and to say 
that they were astounded over what they heard — 
things far in advance of all their unquestionable 
knowledge of physical anatomy — will certainly not 
give an adequate idea of their surprise. Moreover, 
some of these examinations were made for persons 
who had long been on the roster of incurables, but 
who clung to Science for palliation of their sufferings. 
The information obtained through Elfa enabled some 
physicians for whom such diagnosis were made to ar- 
rest disorders promptly, and it is but right to state 
that some of these cases were noted medical puzzles 

26 



over which the resources of the Science had been 
fully exhausted. 

If any man ever made a thorough and exhaustive 
study of the higher human faculties and forces that 
man is Carl du Prel, the celebrated German savant. 
He says: "Somnambulic clairvoyance, already 
known to Plato and Aristotle, in the temple-sleep 
and in the old mysteries, and in recent times estab- 
lished by a w r hole succession of experiments, is 
now a fact which must be reckoned with, and to 
which our systems " (medical) " must adapt them- 
selves. " 

A well developed Psyche sees into the human body 
as clearly as a person with perfect sight sees into a 
glass case. 

When this higher perceptive sense is trained in a 
specific direction, and there is a natural inclination 
on the part of the Psyche to that particular class of 
work, there is absolutely no limit to the information 
that may be thus obtained. 

Having this rare advantage I have been able tc 
verify many things upon which I dared not claim, 
even to myself, the right to assert that I had 
reached an acceptable conclusion. 

However I regret to end this subject here, the 
necessary brevity is apparent in the measure of this 
volume. I may on that account find myself in the 
peculiar predicament of having either said too 
much or too little. If it is the latter, the difficulty 
will be easily overcome by those who are seriously 
interested. With the opinion of those who neither 
do, nor want to understand, I do not concern myself 
:n the least. 

I am so thoroughly conscious of the truth of all I 

27 



have said, that I feel sure that those at least who 
have made efforts in the same direction, will believe 
that assurance, however much a lack of experience 
may prevent others from benefitting from my inten- 
tion to the degree hoped for. 

To sum up the practical parts of Natural Heal- 
ing—we commence with the material part of the 
Self — the body proper. Cleanliness, plenty of fresh 
air, sufficient exercise, and a sensible choice of food 
taken in moderation, are the chief factors in main- 
taining health. 

When physical disorders are occasioned by viola- 
tion of the simple hygienic laws we resort to simple 
natural methods of re-establishing harmony. 

As the body is composed of substances that are 
all taken into the stomach, that organ is first to be 
considered. It is here where nearly all of the human 
ailments have their origin. The elimination of ac- 
cumulated wastes in the alimentary canal is the first 
process in the restoration to a normal state. It re- 
quires but little sense to understand that all attempts 
to relieve the stomach and bowels by artificial ex- 
pedients are dangerous. In the first place every ad- 
dition to the troublesome contents of the alimentary 
passages is liable to complicate matters. If such 
evil does not become immediately apparent — it is 
almost certain to demonstrate itself in some local 
trouble through a chemical change in the secretions. 
It is thus that all sorts of difficulties are created, 
that are subsequently specifically treated by the 
Medics without regard to the first cause. In view of 
this indisputable fact it is certainly plain that every 
particle of drug must add to the complication al- 
ready existing. 28 



f 



Enemas are hardly less unnatural than drugs, and 
if an emergency does seem to justify their employ- 
ment it should be with as much caution as ought to 
be exercised in the taking of prescribed medicines 
of which the composition is unknown. 

The sequent consideration is, that where these 
artificial aids become a habit, you are enslaved to 
their continuance, and the functions that should be 
natural, automatic and performed without incon- 
venience, become more and more troublesome un f *' 
a crisis is reached that is bound to lead to dire con- 
sequences. 

The effect of the mind upon the dige^. :ve process 
is also to be well considered with the first cause of 
organic discord. Powerful as an unconsciously pro- 
duced mental effect may prove in creating an ab- 
normal state — the counter-effect — as when mind cure, 
suggestive therapeutics or any similar mode of 
treatment is relied upon for relief — must necessarily 
be a conscious action of greater potency than the 
one that produced or helped create the evil, and 
must be understandingly exercised. 

While in nowise disposed to under-rate any of the 
methods that act through the mind upon the phys- 
ical organism, I maintain that they are all, without 
exception, of but limited service where the first re- 
quisite, obviously, is purification that demands phys- 
ical processes, and where nothing else will serve. 

Here then, we find our best friend in water-cure— 
the various forms of baths, the sweating-out pro- 
cesses with hot air, steam and the solarium. 

Massage is one of the most helpful adjuncts to 
Natural Healing, and together with the movement 

29 



cure is indispensible in all cases where the trouble is 
caused by stagnation of the blood. Magnetism 
is the superlative potency that will dislodge disease 
when everything else has failed, but like with Mind 
Cure, or any other mode of treatment, a thorough 
knowledge of the primary physical requisites will 
multiply its beneficent offices. 

I will state here for the benefit of those who have 
^already made a serious study of these matters that I 
•* discovered through Elfa a complete magnetic system 
as full of details as the circulatory, the nervous and 
the lymphatic, with distinct centers, poles and 
plexuses, all of which become invisible when rigor 
mortis sets in, an-d that of course defy search with 
the scalpel and microscope. 

Much good has been done through Hypnotism 
and in this much lauded specialty we have the best 
effort of Science to deal with the imagination." I 
hope that this point will not be overlooked by 
students. 

As Hypnotism is but a pretext of knowledge to 
cover the lack of understanding of the magnetic 
principle in our composition and its relation to a uni- 
versal power, I do not deem it necessary to say 
more on that subject. 

All the foregoing in a nut-shell is — that there is 
abundant good in all of the various healing methods, 
medicine not excepted by any means, but to expect 
to perform miracles through any one method alone 
is about as sensible as to claim a thorough knowl- 
edge of harmony because one can strum out the 
musical scale in one key. 

30 



MODERN SURGERY. 

However difficult it may be to find evidence of 
real progress in medicine, it is not to be denied that 
surgery has made gigantic strides. 

When it is known that abnormal growths have 
been removed from living persons, that weighed 
almost as much as the persons from whom they 
were taken, it gives a good deal to think about. 

When serious dislocations, and bad fractures of 
bones are encountered, the natural healer who will 
undertake to replace the former or set the latter 
must be more than bold. Broken bones are some- 
times successfully united by healers, and trouble- 
some inflammations, that refuse to yield to art, have 
frequently been quickly reduced by natural processes. 
There can be no questioning the fact that many have 
been spared from amputation of a member by the 
intervention of an untitled healer, but it is also no 
less certain that a good many others would have 
become deformed or crippled for life if surgical aid 
had not been sought. Again, it is not to be denied 
that there is altogether too much indiscriminate 
cutting — a reckless slashing that has surpassed all 
bounds of sense and reason. The morbid desire 
to carve and the temptation to exact the always 
considerable honorarium for an operation, are two 
features that have been the causes of untold mischief. 

Unsexing women has become an almost common 
practice, while the truth is that not one case in 
twenty justifies the removal of the ovaries. How 
far reaching this mania is can only be esti- 
mated by those who reflect that a woman's mission 
is to bear children, who in turn become mothers and 

31 



fathers. If one woman is deprived of the faculty of 
propagation, how many lives are thus indirectly 
prevented from coming into existence — say, only in 
five generations? 

The appendicitis craze is another surgical fad 
that has become a serious menace. Not a day 
passes that does not record fatal results from this 
scientific delusion. 

The victims of the knife who have been operated 
upon for cancer are beyond enumeration. Science 
insists that there is no help for those afflicted with 
this dreadful disease, except that given on the 
operating table, and despite that assertion there is 
no end of proof that great numbers who had been 
told they could not live unless they submitted to 
this scientific butchering, were fully cured by the so- 
called "cancer quacks." 

It is indisputable that there are natural means by 
which abnormal growths can be checked, dispersed 
and eliminated from the system, and if that 
is properly done the cure is complete; whereas, 
there are but few cases where a bad cancer was cut 
out, and the person survived the operation, that 
another did not soon form, and few survive a second 
surgical ordeal. 

The scientific folly of the present time is inocu- 
lation; injecting the rotted blood of animals 
into the human organism! Science has labeled this 
horrible filth "serum/' A future generation of sci- 
entists will, no doubt, discover that their predeces- 
sors were monomaniacs. 

No two classes could be more helpful to each 
other than the surgeon and the healer. 

32 



THE DUAL ENTITY. 

Without the least desire to offend, I must say 
that anyone who still doubts the actuality of a dual 
personality can not lay claim to much progress in 54 
psychical research. 

There is no end of proof that Sensitives in mag- 
netic sleep have described localities, houses, the 
interior of dwellings, their furnishings and odd 
objects; also persons and their actions at specifically 
stated times, all of which was proven to be exactly 
as stated. It is, of course, understood that those 5" 
giving such descriptions had no prior knowledge of 
the places and persons so reported, and that all pos- 
sible collusion was carefully and completely guarded 
against. 

Only those who are too lazy or too ignorant to 
inform themselves in regard to matters that concern 
them most will doubt or deny this statement. This 
is intended for students more particularly who are 
wont to air their knowledge of psychological impos- 
sibilities. 

We have here to do with well confirmed facts. 
All we need to consider is — was the distant locality, 
house, furnishings, a lot of bric-a-brac, and a score 
of people transported to the apartment of the 
sleeper (a most ridiculous view), or was this sleeper, 
or a part of him or her, conveyed to the scene in 
question? The person per se was there before the 
investigators in trance or sleep, whichever term 
is preferred — motionless. The question is, what 
part of this person obtained the information? It 
could certainly not be gathered by any miraculous 
extension of a faculty, because it required an intelli- 
gence to make the observation and report. In some 

33 



instances more than vision was involved, because 
sounds and conversations were described Here is 
where all halt. The sole reason why this problem 
has not been solved heretofore is that the still 
higher perception of the perfect Psyche was lacking. 

It is by no means as rare a thing as the unin- 
formed believe, to meet with persons who are capa- 
ble of such feats, although the Sensitives employed, 
are themselves unconscious of the process by which 
their work is accomplished. 

I solved that problem through Elfa, and in this, 
above all else, I had the fullest proof of her wonder- 
ful perfection and versatility as a Psyche. 

The solution is as simple as it must be astounding 
to those who are unprepared to hear it. 

All will agree that lands, houses and people can 
not be moved several hundred miles, or more, in 
five minutes or less, even with the aid of the whitest 
or the blackest of magic; neither will the extension 
of one, or even two perceptive senses, without a 
directing intelligence, be accepted as a rational 
explanation of the phenomenon-- by any one capa- 
ble of independent thought. If then, these obvious 
impossibilities are rejected, what is the sole remain- 
ing explanation? Clearly that a part of the Self — 
entire in itself — a thing that is competent to observe, 
judge, reason and report, — left the sleeper and 
made the journey to the place described 

The fact that such persons are unable to account 
for the manner in which they obtained such informa- 
tion does not detract from the importance of the 
performance. (Such achievements have been too 
often verified to be doubted). All that has been 

34 



wanting to make the matter intelligible is a satisfac- 
tory elucidation of the process. 

All these things are so plain, so simple and so 
natural to me that I am surprised when reminded 
that all this will probably sound like extravagant 7 1 
fiction to many — perhaps even to a majority of those 
who read this book. If it has been my good 
fortune to discover an occulted truth, it is evidently 
also my plain duty to speak of it without hesitation, 4 
— without fear of any consequences to myself from 
that common sense which I know to be the chief 
obstacle to that particular progress that alone can, 
and ultimately must insure the much needed better- 
ment of conditions for humanity. 

Before giving my own very simple explanation I 
want to say that the Society for Psychical Research in 
England has done more to enlighten the world on 
all these obscured subjects in a strictly scientific and 
rational manner than all other organized bodies and 
educational institutions together, — also that few are 
able to estimate the magnitude of the debt owing to 
those tireless, unselfish plodders, for the grand work 
they are doing for the benefit of mankind. In this 
association there are no moral cowards who are 
afraid to relate what they discover beyond the hedge 
of common sense; all are striking proofs of the vast 
difference between the common order of sense and 
the uncommon. 

In order to bridge the great gap between so- 
called exact science that peremptorily demands facts 
ithat can be demonstrated to anybody with any kind 
of sense, and the freer knowledge of things that are'"* 
best worth knowing but that are scientifically in the 

35 



limbo called the "unknowable," the S. P. R. pioneers 
are obliged to go slow and prove the absolute cer- 
tainty of their advance step by step under strictly 
scientific methods which they are also compelled to 
^ formulate and perfect as they press onward. That 
is a herculean task, but it is being done. Gurney, 
Barrett, Meyers, Podmore and Bramwell opened the 
quarry and dugout the solid blocks for the founda- 
tion and laid it too, so no earthquake will unsettle 
it, while Hodgson kept busyhuntingup material that 
could not be blown away by even a skeptical tornado. 
Sir William Crookes, as brave as alert, is already 
forging the golden spike that will nail down the last 
plank that will enable the exact and the orthodox 
to cross the chasm without danger of being swept 
off their feet by the rush of the empirical tidal 
wave that is now surging about the worm eaten 
underpinning of the dungeons where the scientific 
"Don't know's" are hidden from public view. 

If coffifent to plan every forward stride by a sci- 
entific rule, and be assured that you are making no 
mistake, and running no risk, and you are not in a 
hurry — then by all means get the back numbers of 
the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 
and digest them well. 

If, however, the progressive spirit is too strong 
for your patience to be curbed to that extent, and 
the wings of your higher Self warrant the attempt 
of a flight before the S. P. R. bridge is finished, and 
proved safe, the following brief recital of some 
points in my experience will be helpful for a start 
into a realm as yet free from Scientific sign posts — 
that so often point the wrong way. 

36 



The state in which Elfa performs her wonder- 
ful work is a most carefully induced form, as ^ 
well as degree, of Magnetic Sleep. She is totally^ 
unconscious; the mental processes are arrested; 
muscular relaxation is complete. 

So far I followed a method known more than a 
century ago. I knew that I had a lucide (or som- 
nambule) but that was not all I wanted. I lapsed 
into a complete passive state from an intense con- 
centration on the essence of my desire, and all at 
once the riddle was solved. So sure was I that the 
proper direction had come to me that I did not hes-59 
itate to apply the process indicated instanter. 
Within twenty minutes I was in communication 
with the real personality — the higher individuality 
of Elfa, a distinct entity — as much so as if it were an 
entirely different person. And here, by the way, a 
certain author who wrote a quite plausible and 
apparently logical treatise on Hypnotism, and 
whose book came to market at a (for him) very 
opportune time, and who was very rashly accepted 
and widely quoted as an infallible authority, — among 
many other mistakes made the very grievous one of 
stating that somnambules are incapable of inductive 
reasoning. If he had stated that somnambules de- 
veloped through Hypnotism are incapable of induc- 
tive reasoning I would have no occasipn to refer to 
this matter, but as the assertion remains unqualified, 
it would be wrong to let this serious error stand 
without correction. 

In the first place a perfect Psyche (as distin- 
guished from the Hypnotist's somnambule) has no 
need of the reasoning process because in this state, 6° 
if it is perfect, cognition is direct, positive and in- 

37 



controvertible — as I found to my chagrin when ex- 
pecting full confirmation of pet preconceptions. 
Moreover, 2 met a most determined opponent at 
many points where I thought my knowledge unas- 
sailable, and got all the inductive and deductive 
reasoning the most exacting reasoner could hope 
for from any source. 

I said something about being chagrined. I confess 
to bsing so at being taught facts about Magnetism and 
the higher life by a mere child; facts that, in some 
instances, at least, proved her the master and I the 
pupil. I am amenable to reason and open to truth, 
'but do not yield easily when I feel sure of my right 
to an opinion. I fought hard to make a fair show- 
ing for my lifetime of hard thinking, hard study, 
long journeys and money expended in the exploita- 
tion of this vast subject — but I was beaten on the 
very qiound I was born upon, and that, as I said — 
by a rr.ere child! 

PL-^it and submissive to truth as we may be, when 
our h^ir is well silvered it is a rude awakening to 
have our cherished certainties blown to the winds by 
the breath of a youngster not out of the teens — by a 
being without any experience in the world, without, 
as then, but not now, a particle of knowledge (in the 
ao termed normal state) of the matter so masterfully 
put, and proven by the aroused dual Self. 

Never in my long and eventful life was the conceit, 
so completely taken out of me as during these in-' 
Instigations. But there were heads behind tha<t 
passive mask of unconscious mortal substance that 
centered a united wisdom upon this exceptional 
instrument that would make the proudest mind bow 
low and wonder at the meagerness of human knowl- 
edge in the real light of the unchangeable truth. 

38 



Although pained at times at the thought of years 
of labor wasted, fortunately I had no vanity to 
wound. I say fortunately, because if a pricked 
pride had prompted me to resent the almost total 
destruction of a knowledge so laboriously acquired, 
and at the cost of so many sacrifices, the portals of 
that universal source of light would have closed. 

When I had been taught the truth of the lesson 
that Shakespeare gave us through Puck, "what fools 
these mortals be;" when I was purged of the admi- 
ration of my own wisdom, I received information, 
knowledge, practical instruction that would have 
been beyond the capacity of any mind to grasp — if 
it had not been for the simplicity of causes assigned, 
the astounding directness and brevity of thought 
when stripped of false reasoning, of theoretical 
deductions. Even at that I would have failed if the 
same factors had not renewed the energies of that 
Self within myself that had been so nearly asphyx- 
iated by that thief of true sense — called common 
sense. 

When I became competent to undertake the 
task of separating the higher from the physical 
Self, I was instructed how to project the former to 
any point from which I might desire information. I 
commenced with near by points, gradually increas- 
ing distances, until my psychic messenger made a 
visit to a Yoga friend at the exactly opposite point 
of the earth from where we then resided. Not a 
single trial was a failure; every report made to me 
in that way was immediately written out and mailed 
and invariably the correctness of these accounts 
was verified by return post or telegraph. 

39 



It is of course neither possible nor expected that I 
go into details of this work in these few pages. 
I would certainly not have gone to this length if 
the purpose of this little publication were not to 
throw a helpful light to those who are seeking from 
external sources what is solely to be found within 
the Self. 

One fact must, however briefly, be noted here, as 
^ it may save many from untold misery. Spirit 
mediumship is an indisputable actuality. Where 
I once but wondered, I now shudder at the reckless 
ness of persons who place their bodies at the dis- 
posal of the scum of discarnate life. To cultivate 
mediumship without an absolute foreknowledge of 
the possible sequences to lapsing into the defense- 
less state of a surrendering passivity is worse, by far, 
than anything conveyed by the saying, "it is the 
height of folly. ,, 

I might have lived another half century without 
becoming thoroughly convinced of the truth of 
mediumship if I had not learned the modus 
operandi of the exit and re-entrance of the immor- 
tal Self into the mortal body. 

Balzac most truly said: u The simple produces 
the marvelous. " 

All these things are simple and natural, All 

there is mystical, occult, magical, is an artificial 

confusion of the mind — a chaos of false and fixed 

ideas. 

7 c All the wonders and real treasures are contained 

' within the Self. 



40 




c 



THE CONTINUANCE 

OF THE HIGHER 5ELF. 

All that has recently been publicly stated about 
the certainty of communication with individuals re- 
leased from their mortal bodies, by such men as 
Alfred Russell Wallace, the friend and associate of 
Darwin, — Sir William Crookes, the leader of Science 
in England, — Professor William James of Harvard 
University, who has also been president of the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research, — Dr. Richard Hodg- 
son, the indefatigable representative of the S. P. R. 
in America, — Rev. Minot J. Savage, and other men . 
of that calibre, obviates the necessity of comment on 
my part on the progress of true Spiritism. 

I will therefore make my few brief notations with- 
out any preamble, trusting that these practical ob- 
servations, short as they are, may prove of some 
service in spanning the imagined abyss between 
earth life — and the other. 

I believe myself right in stating that the principal 
reason why no more perfect intercourse is had be- 
tween incarnate and discarnate individuals is because 
of the lack of savoir faire on the part of the intelli- 
gence in the body. 

If a perfect magnetic relation (permanent rap- 
port) and psychological affinity are established 
between the higher Selves of persons who are famil- 
iar with the simple process of receiving thoughts 
without vocal expression, there is no reason why 
such communication should cease, or become more 
difficult when one is released from the material part 
of the Self. 

41 



If the mutual accordance embraces the three 
essential requisites — mental, magnetic and psychical 
concord, and it is brought to as high a state of 
attunement as I know to be possible while still in 
the flesh, there should be no perceptible difference 
in ability to communicate when one or the other 
higher Entity is released. 

If I (as I am) am able to separate the two enti- 
ties, and, at any distance, maintain perfect corres- 
pondence with the one projected, I fail to see what 
difference it can make if the Magnetic connection, 
which under these circumstances, is all that unites 
the higher Entity with the physical personality, is 
finally severed, — providing — nota-bene — that the 
desire for continuance of the terrene relationship is 
mutual. There should, if a variation is had, be 
fewer obstacles with one physical organism out of 
the way, because however completely such persons 
j may also have been in harmony physically the mor- 
tal self is always bound to hamper the other more 
or less, if in no other way than in unavoidable 
variations of magnetic strength and quality which, 
after disembodiment, is perfect and not subject to 
any changes. 

While I am not prepared as yet to make this a 
positive assertion, I am sure that I will be able to 
prove this conception to be as stated through Elfa, 
after I make my cheerful exit from my corporeal 
habitat. 

The little book is about full, but I must add a 
few lines that may not only facilitate progress in 
these studies, but also lend courage to many who 
have had proof in themselves of an undefinable 
something that seems, by occasion, temporarily to 
assert itself, only to be again lost to cognition. 

42 



If the earth does not give up its treasures without 
a search and work, why should we expect to find 
much more valuable possessions within ourselves 75 
without an effort? 

The successful agriculturist studies his soil, cli- 
mate and his seedings. He does not expect to har- 
vest a huge crop of grain or fruit from reading a 
few books. The miner trudges up hill and down 
dale, and follows watercourses for "signs," outcrop- 
pings or colors, which he must have learned to cog- 
nize. When he finds these he washes out dirt, or 
digs as the case may be. He does not expect Prov- 
idence to pour gold into his lap without a bend of 
the back or a stroke of the pick on his part. But 
most people have an idea that if there was anything 
inside of them that is uncommon it ought to come 
to the surface and show itself without an effort. 

The human body, whatever its form, color, orna- 
ment or lack of it, may contain priceless gifts, but 
that body may carry these from the cradle to the 
grave without discovery if no effort is made to find 75 
them and to make them grow. 

An ignorant or shiftless farmer will have a plenty 
of weeds or no crops at all, and the same kind of a 
prospector may sleep on ground, that covers a 
bonanza and never know it ; and so thousands dawdle 
through life reaping no crops, finding no treasure — 
unconsciously carrying talents, extraordinary facul- 
ties, wonderful powers — all the time deploring that 
Nature or God had done nothing more for them 
than put them on earth to live without a satisfying 
enjoyment. 

A few illustrations and I am done. A doctor 
came to me — a splendid specimen of manhood, both 

13 



in mind and body. He was dissatisfied; he had all 
the knowledge the medical curriculum could give 
him. He realized its exact value. If he could only 
become clairvoyant! If he could only see into the 
living organism! A few lessons and some magnetic 
manipulations and he had all he wanted — and that 
without clairvoyance. He developed intuition to 
such an extent that his hand will go to the part dis- 
eased without any direction from his mind, and he 
diagnoses perfectly without a mental effort. Did 
this man get all he wanted? I know that he got 
more than he ever dared hope for, because with the 
arousing of his intuition came a magnetic healing 
power that is more effective than all his arts. 

I placed a scarabeus in the hand of a man and 
closed his fist without him seeing the object. If he 
could distinguish its form by the contact it would 
feel like a large bean. He closed his eyes and said: 
"This thing came from Egypt. It is a bug; it came 
from a grave." All true to the letter. That is psy- 
chometry. 

A woman takes an old glove in her hand; it makes 
her shudder. She sighs and says: "Oh, how she suf- 
fered" (meaning the owner of the glove), adding, 
"it is a good thing she was released," and then gives 
a description of the person. 

This is another phase of psychometry, of a sympa- 
thetic emotional character. 

A fortune was spent in the endeavor to find water 
in a dry stretch of land where it was badly needed. 
All the well diggers available had tried boring and 
digging in vain. I had a rather uncouth but faithful 
North-countryman (English) to care for my horses. 
I had never tried him for any qualities other than as a 

44 



groom. He said to me: "If you let me take a horse 
for a day I will find water — if there is any, — in two 
hours after I come back." I let him go. The 
moment he spoke I "sensed" his quality. He re- 
turned at dawn the following day with a few hazel 
branches. He took one (forked) in both hands and 
walked over the ground with eyes closed. After 
walking slowly awhile among the holes that had 
been dug, he suddenly stopped, wheeled about and 
went to within ten feet of the furthest excavation. 
A tremor went all through him, and the twig bended 
toward the earth. "Here is water and a plenty," he 
said. By that time the station was aroused, and 
how every mother's son of them did laugh and gibe. 
But finally they decided to dig. At eight feet they 
found moisture; at ten they struck gravel and got a 
wet bottom; at twelve they struck a slaty crust and 
bubbling water. At about fourteen, feet, nearly ten 
less than the depth of any other hole, the diggers 
made a rush for the surface with the water after 
them. Next morning the hole was full to within 
four feet of the top. It proved to be a spring — pure, 
wholesome and inexhaustible. 

Here I had what in England is called a " Dowser." 
He had never tried water-finding before, but had 
often heard of its being done in the " old country." 
The impression (?) came to him while we were 
looking down a dry hole that if he could find a hazel 
wand he would discover water. He staid right 
there. There were great holdings of lands of little 
value only because no water was available. The 
news spread like wildfire. Terms were of no object. 
He kept right on finding water where thousands 
upon thousands of dollars had been wasted in vain 

45 



search. All the great mining camps furnish evidence 
of finding rich deposits by intuition, where the most 
experienced prospectors and geologists had gone 
over every foot of ground and condemned it as 
barren — and some tenderfoot who could not dis- 
tinguish country rock from pure quartz, happened 
along, dug a hole — and became a millionaire. 

There are a hundred and more out-branchings of 
2 this power. Sometimes a " gift " (?) like that will 
manifest itself spontaneously, but the manifestation 
is not understood or heeded. The unconscious pos- 
sessor does not know the difference between ordi- 
nary thought and the voice of his higher Self which 
is thrust back because common sense declares that 
these things are all nonsense. 

Who said " Seek and ye shall find " ? 

Who said " Faith is the substance of things 
hoped for; the evidence of things not seen " ? 

* * * 

My closing admonition is: Take a vacation from 
^r Common Sense and explore your interior for the 
great and good things that may lie dormant within 
you. 



VALUABLE TESTIMONY. 

As this little book will go to many persons who 
live in places remote from the great centers of 
information, and who are not likely to have the 
opportunity to learn the real inner opinion of truly 
great men on these vital issues, I decided to add the 
following extracts from the recorded sayings of 
some of the great leaders of thought, whose names 
adorn the sciences and professions with which they 
are identified. 

As my own comments are as mild as milk and 
honey compared with the vigorous and scathing 
arraignment of their own schools, by the world- 
renowned authorities quoted, this addition will serve 
to attest my moderation as well as my close adher- 
ence to truth. 

NOTE. The numbers on margins of the preceding 
pages refer to the following quotations. This arrange- 
ment is intended to facilitate the search for proof of 
the correctness and solidity of opinions expressed 
in this volume. 

Although some may think this an unnecessary 
labor, many others will appreciate the plan, espec- 
ially older students who like to verify what is new 
to them in the order in which the matter is pre- 
sented. 



47 



QUOTATIONS. 

Earnest investigators, no less than younger stud- 
ents beginning search for the higher truths — pure 
truth — will do well to make a close study of the 
following excerpts. 

There is a fund of information in this collection 
of opinions that surpasses half a lifetime of in- 
dividual research. More than that — we have in this 
accumulation of well defined conclusions the gist of 
great tomes of knowledge that could never be 
mastered single handed unless — direct cognition is 
had. 

Those who are capable of direct cognition do not 
need books or any other helps of this order, but 
such are few. 

This little monitor is intended for seekers of 
truth in whom this grand faculty is still dormant, 
who do need the help herewith extended. I hope 
they will profit thereby. 

* * * 

1. "As the sun does not first shine when it escapes 
the clouds, but is constant, only seeming dark and 
invisible to us by reason of the vapors, so also the 
soul does not first obtain the faculty of seeing the 
future when it emerges from the body as from a 
cloud, but already now possesses it, but is blinded by 
union with the mortal part of us." — Plutarch. 

2. "A miracle does not happen in contradiction to 
nature, but in contradiction to that which is known 
to us of nature." —Augustine. 

3. "All truths are old, and all we have to do is to 
cognize them anew." — Goethe. 

48 



4. "The young anthropologists and psychologists 
who will soon have full occupancy of the stage w 7 ill 
feel, as we have felt, how great a scientific scandal it 
has been to lqave a great mass of human experience 
to take its chances between vague tradition and 
credulity on the one hand and dogmatic denial at 
long range on the other, with no body of persons 
extant who are willing and competent to study the 
matter with both patience and vigor. There have 
been isolated experts, it is true, before now. But our 
society has for the first time made their abilities 
mutually helpful. " * * 

"If I were asked to give some sort of dramatic 
unity to our history, I should say first that we 
started with high hopes that the hypnotic field 
would yield an important harvest, and that these 
hopes have subsided with the general subsidence of 
what may be called the hypnotic wave." * * 

''Science means, first of all, a certain dispassionate 
method. To suppose that it means a certain set of 
results that one should pin one's faith upon and hug 
forever, is sadly to mistake its genius, and degrades 
the scientific body to the status of a sect." 

— Prof. William James. 

From address as President of Society of Psychical Research, Seventy-seventh 
General Meeting, January 31, 1896. 

5. "Antipathies also form a part of Magic, falsely 
so-called. Man naturally has the same instinct as 
the animals which warns them involuntarily against 
the creatures that are hostile or fatal to their ex- 
istence. But lie (man)so often neglects it that it 
becomes dormant. Not so the true cultivator of the 
great Science." — Trismegistus the Fourth', 

(A Rosier ucian ) 



49 



6. "This law (gravitation) assumes that there exists 
between all masses of matter in the universe, a 
mutual attraction, in consequence of which they 
tend towards each other with a force which varies 
directly as their mass and inversely as the square of 
the distance between them. Assuming this, all the 
facts are explained; and it is quite logical to con- 
clude, that the assumption which explains all the 
facts, and enables us even to predict them, is true. 
But does this law of the force of gravitation, the 
law according to which it varies, account for or 
explain the fact of gravitation? Why do two masses 
of matter tend toward each other? Why do they do 
so with a force varying as above described? The 
only answer to this question is, that there is an at- 
traction between them, that they mutually 
attract each other. But this, it will be perceived, 
is merely stating, in other words, the fact itself, and 
not the cause of it. The law of gravitation as laid 
down by Newton, whe?i once admitted, explains or 
accounts for the facts of gravitation, but does not 
touch the cause of them. It shows the shape and 
limits of the force, but leaves us in the dark as to its 
real nature. And the same is true of all natural 
laws; of the laws of heat, light, electricity, galvanism, 
magnetism proper, chemical action, etc." 

— Prof. William Gregory, 

(University of Edinburgh). 

7. "The ultimate source of allenergy is to be found 
only in the Divine Power which created and upholds 
the stars in their courses, and is at work in the chem- 
ical, physical and vital activities about us and in us 
— the infinite intelligence which "is all, and in all." 

—Dr. J. H. Kellogg. 

50 



8. "Scientific men almost invariably assume that in 
this inquiry (Spiritism) they should be permitted at 
the very outset to impose conditions, and if under 
i such conditions nothing happens, they consider it 
j proof of imposture or delusion. But they well 
f know, in all other branches of research, Nature, 
not they, determines the essential conditions, with- 
out a compliance with which no experiment will 
succeed. These conditions have to be learned by 
patient questioning of Nature, and they are different 
for each branch of Science. How much more must 
they be expected to differ in an inquiry which deals 
with subtile forces of Nature of which the physicist 
is wholly and absolutely ignorant. To ask to be 
allowed to deal with these unknown phenomena as 
he has hitherto dealt with known phenomena is 
practically to prejudge the question, since it assumes 
that both are governed by the same laws." 

Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, 
g. " True science was never esteemed by contem- 
poraries, but on the contrary was for the most part 
rejected. And it could not be otherwise. True 
I science shows people their errors, and points out to 
them new and untried paths of life. And both the 
one and the other are disagreeable to the ruling 
class of society. But the present science not only 
does not run counter to the tastes and demands of 
the ruling class of society; but rather corresponds to 
them completely; it satisfies idle curiosity, aston- 
ishes people, and promises them an increase of 
pleasures. And therefore, while everything truly 
great is silent, modest, inconspicuous, the science of 
our time knows no bounds to its self-gratulations." 

— Count Leo N. Tolstoy. 

51 



10. "If these things are not true, Christianity is not 
true; if it and they are true, the fault lies in our- 
selves if we lack the power — we have not vital faith 
and are only half Christians. " — William Howitt. 

1 1 . "Nine-tenths of the public life of Christ was spent 
in curing diseases of the mind and body. To truly 
follow Christ is to do the same thing, moved to it by 
the same spirit of love and all conquering faith. He 
who does this is in the genuine apostolic succession, 
although no lordly prelate has ever laid his im- 
potent hands upon his head. He who can not do it 
is only half a christian minister, and that a small 
half, though he may have been ordained by the pope 
or even St. Peter himself." 

— Comment on above quotation by Rev. Evans. 

12. "The cures wrought by Jesus were no miracles, 
or departures from the established order of Nature, as 
he himself avers. They exhibit the action of a 
higher law, the dominion of mind over matter. 
Everything that is done is effected in harmony with 
some law of Nature — some law of Mind or Matter, 
— and has in it the relation of cause and effect. To 
understand the law by which it is done is to be able 
to do it. Hence Jesus declares respecting his won- 
derful works, which were mostly those of healing 
the bodies and minds of the people who flocked to 
him from every part of the land of the Jews — "The 
works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works 
than these shall ye do, because I go to my Father." 
This is as true as any promise that his lips ever 
uttered. He commissioned and instructed his apos- 
tles to cure all manner of disease and sickness 
among the people." 

— Rev. W. F. Evans. 



13. "Manifestly there are invisible, imponderable 
agencies of great power in this world, other than 
those which modern science recognizes, and it is a 
source of no little annoyance and mortification that 
thus far we have failed to bring them within the field 
of scientific investigation. At present the whole 
matter is involved in doubt and perplexity, but we 
have faith to believe that a future age will solve the 
great mystery and roll away the dark clouds which 
obscure our vision. " — Dr. Nichols, 

Editor Boston Journal of Chemistry. 

14. "The perfect observer in any department of Sci- 
ence will have his eyes, as it were, opened, that they 
may be struck at once by any occurrence which, 
according to received theories, ought not to happen, for 
these are the facts which serve as clues to new dis- 
coveries." — Sir John Herschell. 

15. Mr. Frederick Treves, who is without doubt one 
of the greatest surgeons, says: 

"Some years ago I performed sundry experiments 
upon the intestines of dogs, but such are the differ- 
ences between the human and the canine intestines 
that when I came to operate upon man I found that 
I was much hampered by my new experience, and 
that I had everything to unlearn. My experiments 
upon dogs had done little but unfit me to deal 
with the human intestines. Vivisection is, in my 
opinion, one of the greatest delusions that has ever 
fastened upon the medical profession. It is a blot 
on the fair name of science, and an incentive to ex- 
perimental outrages upon the sick poor." 

53 



16. "God knows the prodigious quantity of medi- 
cines, harmful to their patients, that have been pre- 
scribed by the physicians. How many stomachs 
have been ruined, how many constitutions destroyed 
by these barbarous drugs. Let us pity the poor 
patients — victims of official science. In medicine it 
is the same as in a lottery: for one favored one, how 
many are ruined, how many untimely deaths, how 
many disabled for the remainder of their days. 
Medicine is, however, necessary, and there is need of 
physicians to relieve the sufferings of humanity; but 
since the former is insufficient, and the latter do not 
possess the qualities or the means proper to 
accomplish the purpose, we must seek for the means 
in some other direction, and we find in Magnetism 
a balm for our sufferings, a consolation for our souls. 
Considering the vast number of sick people who, 
after having consulted the most renowned physi- 
cians, and having taken to no purpose their noxious 
drugs — have obtained relief always — and often a 
radical cure, from the treatment of the untitled 
healers, — we are confident that the day will soon 
come when the free exercise of the medical art will be 
a necessity, — and that will be the day of salvation 
for suffering humanity. 

It is my firm conviction that to the sick should 
be granted full liberty to entrust the care of his 
health to the one possessing his confidence, whether 
that one have a diploma or not. In a word the 
practice of the art of healing should be free." 

— Dr. Gasto?i de Rionx de Messimy. 

17. "Give man the consciousness of what he is, and 
he will soon be what he ought/' 

— Schelling. 



51 



18. "We have seen that the influence of the mind 
upon the body is no transient power; that in health 
it may exalt the sensory functions, or suspend them 
altogether; excite the nervous system so as to cause 
the various forms of convulsive action of the 
voluntary muscles, or depress it so as to render them 
powerless; may stimulate or paralyze the muscles 
of organic life, and the processes of nutrition and 
secretion, causing even death; that in disease it may 
restore the functions which it takes away in health, 
re-enervating the sensory and motor nerves, exciting 
healthy vascularity and nervous power, and assist- 
ing the Vis Medicatrix Naturae to throw off dis- 
eased action or absorb morbid deposits." 

— Dr. Daniel Hack Tnke. 

19. "All this is admitted to be within the power of 
Mind and Will. Meantime a great body of evidence 
is accumulating which must force men of Science 
more and more strongly toward those conclusions 
they have been so long reluctant to approach. In 
the phenomena of hypnotic suggestion an avenue is 
opened through which Western Science may ap- 
proach the positions so long held by the sages of 
the East. In the medico-legal aspects of Animal 
Magnetism, as in the phenomena of telepathy, will 
be found the finger-posts which point to the opera- 
tion of Mind and Will at a distance. 

"In all the inquiries now proceeding into obscure 
psychical and quasi-neural phenomena, the indica- 
tions point in the same general direction. Nor need 
those who have long since satisfied themselves of 
the psychological knowledge of the Orient, be im- 
patient or intolerant of the slow and unfriendly 



progress of Western Science towards affiliation with 
its elder sister. For no greater triumph of Truth, 
no stronger proof of the genuineness of the conclus- 
ions of Eastern Occult Science can be had than the 
confirmation of its doctrines by the body of stu- 
dents working from contrary directions, by opposed 
methods, and in a skeptical and hostile spirit ." 

— George Frederick Parsons. 

(Comment on the ioregoing citation — Tuke.) 

20. "A long chapter might be written on the credu- 
lity of men of Science. The hypotheses that they 
have chased out of the door complacently fly in at 
the window. Many scientists, fresh from apparently 
important discoveries in narrow fields, need to be 
reminded of the lesson contained in the legend of 
St. Augustine, who when walking on the shore one 
day, absorbed in meditation, suddenly perceived a 
child that with a shell was ladling the sea into a 
hole in the sand. 'What are you doing, my child?' 
asked St. Augustine. T am emptying the ocean, 
was the reply, 'into this hole/ 'That is impossible/ 
'Not more impossible than for you to empty the 
Universe into your intellect/ said the child and van- 
ished." — Nicholas Murray Butler, 

21. "The transmission of impressions from one 
part of the nervous system to another, or from the 
nervous system to the muscular and glandular 
structure, has a nearer resemblance to the effects 
produced by the imponderable agents than to any- 
thing else. It seems very probable indeed that the 
nervous force is some modification of that force which 
produces the phenomena of electricity and magnet- 
ism/ 1 — Sir Benjamin Br die. 

56 



22. "Beyond the limits of this visible anatomy com- 
mences another anatomy whose phenomena we can- 
not perceive; beyond the limits of this external 
physiology of forces, of action, and of motion exists 
another invisible physiology, whose principles, 
effects and laws, it is of greater importance to know; 
and beyond the limits of these material and volumin- 
ous therapeutics there are other therapeutics still 
far more important to know and far more useful to 
practice. " — Laplace. 

23. "It has been irrefutably proved that the most 
active agents in Nature are imperceptible entities, 
which like electricity, magnetism, heat and light, 
have neither odor, savor, color, volume, dimension, 
determinate shapes, nor definite proportions; which 
pervade all things without being anywhere percept- 
ible; which govern all things without being seen 
themselves; which penetrate everywhere, but whose 
essence we can not penetrate. " — U Amador. 

24. "For the true springs of our organization are 
not those muscles, those veins, those arteries, which 
are described with such exactness and care. There 
exist in organized bodies internal forces which do 
not follow the gross mechanical laws we imagine, 
and to which we would reduce everything. " 

— Buffon. 

25. "This age that blots out life with question 

marks; this nineteenth century with its knife and 

glass that makes thought physical and thrusts far 

off the heaven so neighborly with man of old, — to 

voids sparse-sown with alienated stars." — Lowell. 

57 



26. "The intelligence, then, we may believe we 
carry with us. But, says some objector, — it is said a 
thousand times, printed in the reviews, spoken of in 
lectures, — How can we think without the brain? Is 
not the brain the only organ of thought? Prof. 
James, of Harvard, whom I quoted last Sunday, 
gave a lecture not long ago on two phases of this 
problem of the other life; and one of them was this, 
and he — one of the best expert authorities in the 
world — takes the ground that that objection about 
the brain is foolish, sophistical, shallow, and utterly 
worthless. In other words, one of the functions of 
the brain at the present time may be thinking. The 
T back of the brain, or above it, may use it as the 
organ of thought and the communication of my 
thoughts to others in my present condition. But 
that does not prove at all that the T ceases to exist, 
and that there is no thinking done when this brain 
gets tired and goes back to dust. To resort to a 
crude illustration, you may attach a dynamo for a 
time to some particular machine. When you re- 
move that machine, you have not destroyed the 
dynamo. You may attach it to some other machine 
and find that you have there all the old-time power. 
"The best scientific men of the world have told us 
that this objection is of no value. /Thought is not 
the product of the brain in that sense There ac- 
companies every effort of mind certain molecu- 
lar movements in the brain. That is all, but it is 
not a case of cause and effect; it is only concomi- 
tance. Thought coincides with the movements of 
the brain. " — Rev. MinotJ. Savage. 

27. "Only great minds are capable of estimating 
the magnitude of little things. " — Rayon. 

58 



28. "Whatever may be the design of the bill it will 
not protect the public health. If statistics are to be 
relied on the death rate in Colorado is as low as it 
ever was, and lower than in some of the States which 
have enacted measures of legislation similar to this. 
The department of surgery excepted, medicine is 
not a science. It is a series of experiments more or 
less successful, and will become a science when the 
laws of health and disease are fully ascertained and 
understood. This can be done, not by arresting the 
progress of experiment, and binding men down to 
hard and fast rules of treatment, but by giving free 
rein to the man who departs from the beaten highway 
and discovers hidden methods and remedies by the 
wayside. It is through these means that the public 
health is promoted and thereby protected, that the 
members of the medical profession are enabled to 
minister with success to human ailments and bodily 
suffering. Nearly every advance in the treatment 
of diseases, in the method of their detection and in 
the prevention of their occurrence, has been made 
by physicians in disregard of the regulations of the 
order; and the great body of their brethren, after 
denouncing and enduring, have ultimately accepted 
the unquestionable results of these researches and 
discoveries, and made them respectable by adding 
them to the category of the recognized and the reg- 
ular. But for this, the leech, the lancet and the pill- 
box would still be the regulators of the public health, 
and licenses to practice would be confined to these, 
and these only, who used them. This is but to say 
that medical progress in general has not been made 
by, but notwithstanding the great body of its pro- 
fessors. * * 

59 



"The title of the bill, as it relates to the public, is a 
misnomer. This is a common subterfuge; all meas- 
ures designed to promote a specific interest or pro- 
tect an existing evil are ostensibly labeled 'for the 
benefit of the people.' The fact that the people do 
not seek the protection, ask for the benefit, nor sus- 
pect the existence of the alleged danger is wholly 
immaterial." — Governor Thomas, of Colorado. 

(From his veto of the Medical Bill.) 

29. " If the action of imperceptible agents is 
opposed to so-called common sense, that is as much 
as to say that experience is opposed to it, — but as 
common sense and experience are not, and can not 
be, contradictory, if common sense refuses to believe 
in the action of all imperceptible agents, common 
sense stands in need of a thorough reform which 
experience will be able to effect. 

"True science, which is nothing else than the 
reflection of experience, has in this manner reformed 
common sense many times." 

— Prof. U Amador.. 

(Address to Medical College, France) . 

30. "The so-called Science of our day has followed 
the materialistic lines so exclusively that the paths 
of real knowledge have been missed. Teachers of 
broad, general culture have been sorely needed to 
direct the current of learned investigation into the 
right channels." — Edward Stanton. 

31. "The greatest objection I have to the book is, 
that the author uses the accurate knowledge he pos- 
sesses (for what reason I can not tell), to teach 
error." — Prof. Brockett. 

(In review of a book.) 
60 



32. u He who sets out honestly in search of Truth 
must not allow himself to be appalled by the splen- 
dor of names and authorities, however great and 
imposing. The paramount interests of science de- 
mand that we should boldly endeavor to beat down 
all the barriers by which her progress might be im- 
peded." — Colqhoan. 

33. "Before experience itself can be used with ad- 
vantage, there is one preliminary step to make which 
depends wholly on ourselves; it is, the absolute dis- 
missal and clearing the mind of all prejudice, and 
the determination to stand or fall by the result of a 
direct appeal to facts in the first instance, and of 
strict logical deductions from them afterwards." 

— Sir John Herschcll. 

34. "With regard to the miracle question, I can only 
say that the word 'impossible' is not, to my mind, 
applicable to matters of philosophy. That the pos- 
sibilities of Nature are infinite is an aphorism with 
which I am wont to worry my friends/' 

— Professor Huxley. 

35. "I have sought the Truth in the desert, in cities, 
in the universities, in communities and cloisters; I 
have sought it at the court of the Pope, who claims 
to be infallible, and found it not. At last I did find 
it — I discovered it within myself." 

— Bishop Willie Im Bedell (1507). 

36. "The truth can always be had by those who de- 
sire it, but each one must seek it for himself. That 
only which we have within can we see without. If 
we meet no gods it is because we harbor none." 

— Emerso?i. 

61 



37- "Believe me, miracles are in us, not without us. 
Here natural facts occur which men call supernatu- 
ral. God would have been strangely unjust had he 
confined the testimony of his power to certain gen- 
erations and peoples and denied them to others. 
The brazen rod belongs to all. Neither Moses, nor 
Jacob, nor Zoroaster, nor Paul, nor Pythagoras, noi 
Swedenborg, not the humblest messenger nor the 
loftiest Prophet of the most High are greater than 
you are capable of being.' ' — Balzac. 

38. " Be not ignorant of yourself, my friend, and do 
not commit the error which the majority of men com- 
mit, for most men, though they are eager to look 
into the affairs of others, give no thought to the ex- 
amination of their own. Do not you neglect this 
duty, but strive more and more to cultivate a knowl- 
edge of thyself." — Socrates. 

39. " O ye who seek to solve the knot, 
Ye live in God, yet know him not. 

Ye sit upon the river's brink, 
Yet crave in vain a drop to drink. 

Ye dwell beside a countless store, 
Yet perish, hungry at the door/' 

— Sufi Philosophy. 

40. When asked, "What do you know about the 
depths of the Divine Being? ,, Jacob Boehme replied: 
"True, I do not know anything about the Divine 
Being, but the spirit in me does, and I speak only 
what the spirit says." 

41 "But who made nature? " ask the would be wise; 
" My God, not yours! " each devotee replies. 

— Easton. 

62 



42. "Text books are mostly misleading. I get mad 
with myself when I think I have believed what was 
so learnedly set out in them. There are more frauds 
in Science tlian anywhere else. Take a whole pile of 
them that I can name and you will find uncertainty, 
if not imposition, in half of what they state as scientific 
truth. They have time and again set down experi- 
ments as done oy them, curious, out-of-the way 
experiments, that they never did, and upon which 
they have founded scientific truths. I have been 
thrown off my track often by them, and for months 
at a time. You see a great name and you believe in 
it. Try the experiment yourself and you find the 
result altogether different. * * I tell you 
I would rather know nothing about a thing in Sci- 
ence, nine times out of ten, than what the books 
w 7 ould tell me — for practical purposes, for applied 
Science, the best Science, the only Science. 

"I'd rather take the thing up and go through with . 
it myself. I'd find out more about it than any one 
could tell me, and I'd be sure of what I knew. That 
is the thing. Professor this or that will controvert 
you out of the books, and prove out of the books 
that it can't be so, though you have it right in the 
hollow of your hand all the time and could break 
his spectacles with it." — Thos. A. Edison, 

(From an interview in "N. Y. Herald," Dec. 31, 1879). 

43. "The habit of accepting whatever comes to us 
with the endorsement of Science causes men to 
think they comprehend such statements, whereas in 
truth no story of a miracle can possibly be harder 
to grasp by the reason alone. Science not only 
employs the imagination freely, but requires from 
its votaries a constant exercise of faith." 

— George Fredrick Parsons. 

63 



44- "The disgrace of medicine has been that collos- 
sal system of self-deception in obedience to which 
mines have been emptied of their cankering minerals, 
the entrails of animals taxed for their impurities, the 
poison bags of reptiles drained of their venom and 
all the inconceivable abominations thus obtained 
thrust down the throats of human beings suffering 
from some fault of organization, nourishment or 
vital stimulation. " — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

45. "Medicine is an incoherent assemblage of inco- 
herent ideas and is, perhaps, of all the physiological 
sciences, that which best shows the caprice of the 
human mind. It is a shapeless assemblage of 
inaccurate ideas, of observations often puerile and of 
formulae as fantastically conceived as they are tedi- 
ously arranged." • — Prof. Bichat. 

46. When the Rev. Thos. W. Beecher was present 
one day,it was remarked that he had officiated at over 
2,000 funerals. "Yes," he said sadly, shaking his 
head while a twinkle was seen in his eyes, "but there 
were only three who died natural deaths." Upon 
being asked the meaning of his very strange state- 
ment he replied: "Those three did not employ a 
physician." 

47. " Mankind has been drugged to death, and the 
world would be better if the contents of every apoth- 
ecary shop were emptied into the sea, although the 
consequences to the fishes would be lamentable." 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

64 



48. "The past fifteen years have been rife in medical 
delusions, and each in its turn for the time being 
has served to addle the brains of the "profession" 
and injure the health and deplete the pockets of the 
credulous dupes. During the period mentioned we 
have had the "purging craze, " the "sweating craze," 
the "vomiting craze," the "blue glass craze," the 
"Brown-Sequard Elixir of Life craze," the "Inhala- 
tion craze," the "Cod Liver Oil craze," and last, but 
not least, the "Koch Tuberculosis craze." 0, tem- 
poral 0, mores! What fools we are!" 

—Dr. Alexander M. Ross, F. R. S. 

49. "I am incessantly led to make apology for the 
instability of the theories and practice of physic. 
Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of 
disease, and cause us to blush at our own prescrip- 
tions. What mischief have we not done under the 
belief of false facts and false theories? We have 
assisted in multiplying disease — we have done more 
— we have increased their fatality." 

— Dr. Benjamin Rush. 

50. "The history of medicine on the one hand is 
nothing less than a history of variations, and on the 
other, only a still more marvelous history of how 
every successive variation has by medical bodies 
been furiously denounced — then bigotedly adopted." 

— Sir William Hamilton. 

51. "No systematic or theoretical classification of 
diseases or therapeutic agents ever yet promulgated is 
true, or anything like truth, and none can be adopted 
as a safe guidance in practice." 

— Sir John Forbes. 

Royal College of Physicians, London, Physician to the Queen's household, 

65 



52. "A curious story current in London would seem 
to indicate that Sir Redvers Buller, now Comman- 
der in Chief in South Africa, is possessed of the 
strange gift of second sight, a singularly valuable 
gift for a General. It seems he was at Cape Town 
at the time of Sir George Colley's disastrous route 
at the battle of Majuba Hill. On the day of the 
battle, although he was many hundreds of miles 
away, he saw vividly before him the scene of Col- 
ley's defeat and death. So strong was the impres- 
sion which this species of vision created upon his 
mind that he immediately rode out as fast as he 
could to the suburban residence of the Cape Pre- 
mier, Sir James Sibewright, imparting to him his 
fears, and entreating him to get at once in tele- 
graphic communication with the British base at 
Mount Prospect. 

"Sir James complied with his wishes, and whilst 
Buller and the Premier were sitting together, reas- 
suring replies were received, and Major Buller was 
bantered by Sir James on the subject of his appre- 
hensions. Yet before evening had arrived the news 
of General Colley's defeat and death on Majuba 
Hill was flashed across the wires, and it was then 
seen that the disaster to British arms had already 
taken place at the time when Buller called upon 
the Cape Premier, although nothing was known 
about it then at Mount Prospect, the British base 
of operations against the Boers. 

"It is likewise recalled in military circles in Lon- 
don that Sir Redvers seemed to be aware of the 
death of the French Prince Imperial and of the fall of 

66 



Khartum and also of the death of Gordon at the 
hour of occurrence, and long before news of 
the events arrived. Buller is such a strange, 
silent, saturnine looking man, so repellent in his 
manner, and so uninviting as far as familiar conver- 
sation and discussion are concerned, that no one has 
ever been known to question him about these mat- 
ters. But the fact is on record that he has on at 
least three occasions given marvelous demonstra- 
tions of the possession of a second sight, which 
enables him to know important events that are in 
progress hundreds and even thousands of miles away 
from him. 

"Never before has a commander of a big army 
embarked upon a campaign thus mentally equipped." 

— Marquise de Fo?itenoy. 

53. "No one can doubt that phenomena like these 
deserve to be observed, recorded and arranged; and 
whether w r e call by the name of Mesmerism, or by any 
other name, the Science which proposes to do this, 
is a mere question of nomenclature. Among those 
who profess this Science there may be careless 
observers, prejudiced recorders, and rash sympa- 
thizers; their errors and defects may impede the 
progress of knowledge, but they will not stop it. 
And we have no doubt that, before the end of this 
century, the wonders which now perplex, almost 
equally those who accept and those who reject 
modern Mesmerism, will be distributed into defined 
classes, and found subject to ascertained laws — in 
other words will become the subjects of a Science." 

— Nassau William Senior. 

67 



54- u Of all the weaknesses which little men rail 
against, there is none that they are more apt to rid- 
icule than the tendency to believe. And of all the 
signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the ten- 
dency of incredulity is the surest." 

— Sir Bulwer Lytton. 

55. "Havingexperienced the revelation of the higher 
inner consciousness — he distributed his extensive 
and valuable library among the students, books 
being of no further use to him." 

— Said ofjohann Baptiste von Helmont {1577). 

56. "The faculties of man are manifested through 
the effects of Magnetism, just as the properties of 
other bodies are developed by the elevation of heat 
which chemistry supplies." —Mesmer. 

57. u The fallibility of man's judgment exists in his 
liability to deceive himself in regard to Truth. 
Truth never will deceive him. Truth is incapable of 
deception." — Elfa. 

58. "Thought is as distinctly one of the forces of 
Nature as electricity and magnetism, and together 
with will power it dominates the Universe." 

— Balzac. 

59. "One good experiment is of more value than the 
ingenuity of a brain like Newton's Facts are more 
useful when they contradict, than when they support 
received theories." 

— Sir Humphrey Davy. 

60. " Intuition is usually defined as direct cognition 
or knowing, independent of any mediate or reason- 
ing process." — Henry Wood. 

68 



6i. "The emotions powerfully excite, modify, or 
suspend organic functions, causing changes in nutri- 
tion, secretion and excretion and thereby affecting 
the development and maintainance of the body." 

— Dr. Da?iiel Hack Tuke. 

62. "In their zeal to do good, physicians have done 
much harm. They have hurried thousands to the 
grave who would have recovered if left to Nature/' 

— Prof. Alonzo Clark, 

New York College of Physicians. 

63. "This excellent man belonged to that category 
of distinguished sceptics, who content themselves 
with denying whatever they have no knowledge of 
or do not understand." — Flammarion. 

64. " I never could believe tnat Providence had sent 
a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred 
to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be 
ridden." — Rumbald. 

65. "There is nothing in which men approach so 
near the gods as when they try to give health to 
other men." 

— Cicero. 

66. "A scorner seeketh wisdom and findest it not; 
but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth." 

—Bible. 

67. " He was a man who stole the livery of the 
court of Heaven to serve the Devil in." 

— Robert Pollok. 



68. " I am attacked by two classes of persons — the 
learned and the ignorant. Both of them treat me 
with ridicule, and say that I am only fit to be a danc- 
ing master for frogs, and yet I think that I have dis- 
covered one of the grandest forces in Nature. " 

— Galvani. 

69. " The physician, the priest and the scientist, are 
equally loud in the assertion that they are perfectly 
unbiased and open to reason, and they are equally 
prejudiced and dogmatic should any one be so fool- 
ish as to accept their invitation, and attempt to 
reason with them." " Light of Egypt." 

70. "The followers of false leaders should realize 
that there is nothing supernatural. All so-called 
miracles are the result of natural laws, the action of 
which are unrecognized by the observers, and conse- 
quently misinterpreted. " — Rayon. 

71. "As soon as we seek to penetrate the secrets of 
Nature, where nothing is secret, and where it is only 
necessary to have the Eyes to see, we perceive that 
the Simple produces the Marvelous/' — Balzac. 

72. "Wisdom is a right understanding, a faculty of 
discerning good from evil, a judgment grounded on 
the value of things and not the common opinion 
of them/' . — Seneca. 

73. "A presumptuous skepticism that rejects facts 
without examination of their truth, is, in some re- 
spects, more injurious than unquestioning credulity." 

Humboldt. 

74. " Our doubts are traitors, 

And make us lose the good we oft might win." 

— Shakespeare. 

70 



n- "®b flDan! IRnow Zbyself I 
Hn tbee is biooen tbe {Treasure of 
treasures." 

— Abipili. 




Finis. 



LBJl'19 



